CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

Michael Vester

Abstract The article develops a typological map of the class cultures in Germany
(including a short comparison with the typologies of France, Italy and Britain). It is
based on ample qualitative research and representative surveys organised by a
new, dynamic interpretation of the theory of class habitus and social space
developed by Bourdieu. Its methodology centers on Durkheims concept of
milieu which unites the occupational and the cultural dimensions of class. Social
classes are defined primarily not as aggregates of the official employment statistics
but as aggregates of social action, i. e. as groups united and distinguished by
common habitus, practices and tastes. However, the class cultures of everyday life
do not translate directly into political or ideological cleavages. The main six
ideological camps of the political field draw their adherents from different, though
neighbouring milieus in distinct zones of social space. As a whole, the research
supports the hypothesis of class differentiation and not of class erosion.
Keywords

Class change, milieu, habitus, political cleavages.

In this article, there will be developed a typological map of class cultures in

Germany. It is based on a series of research projects organised by a new, dynamic
interpretation of the Bourdieu approach to class habitus and social space. In its
methodology, the research centered on Durkheims concept of milieu which unites
the occupational and the cultural dimensions. Social classes were defined
primarily not as the aggregates of the official employment statistics but as
aggregates of social action, i.e. as groups united by a common habitus and the
respective patterns of practice and taste by which they distinguish themselves
from other milieus. According to its habitus type, each milieu follows specific
stra te gi es of the life cour se which also in clu de spe ci fic edu ca ti o nal and
occupational goals and means and, when frustrated, their substitutes.
Thus, occupational positions are not eliminated from structural analysis as
some of the theorists of post-materialism, affluence and classlessness will have it.
Inste ad, it is seen in a di a lec ti cal rela ti on to the so ci al groups prac ti cal
self-definition. As will be shown, this multi-level approach unites the dimensions
in their relations and therefore allows to locate each milieu in a multidimensional
map of the occupational positions (fig. 3) as well as in historical maps which
identify their descendence from older milieus and class cultures (fig. 4), in maps of
the spatial configuration of milieus in society as a whole (fig. 5) and in maps of their
political dispositions (fig. 6).
In this article, the presentation of German research on the dynamics of
milieus is connected with the discussion of three questions:
SOCIOLOGIA, PROBLEMAS E PRTICAS, n. 42, 2003, pp. 25-64

26

Michael Vester

How can the Bourdieu approach be utilized in different national contexts?

How can the Bourdieu approach be related to the issues of social and cultural
change?
If habitus is the pivot of class analysis, how can research on habitus be
methodologically carried out?

The milieu approach, as developed in Germany under the influence of Bourdieu

and of English cultural studies, is only one of the contributions to solve the first
question, concerning the transnational applicability. It seems that none of these
efforts was content to only apply the Bourdieu approach, imitating it as it had
been developed for the study of the apparently rigid class structures of France.
Each of them tried, in interestingly different aspects, to develop, enlarge or modify
Bourdieus approach in order to enhance its capacity to comprise more aspects of
complex, advanced societies.
Michle Lamont, in her study Money, Morals and Man ners, compared four
factions of the French and United States up per middle class, which comprise
10-15 per cent of the population. In her 160 semi-directive interviews in four
regions, she went into the depth of the habitus patterns, using Bourdieu as a
base (1992: 181, 275). Her results suggest revisions of the main models of
human nature currently in use in social sciences, especially the ontological
model of human na ture of Marxist, structuralist and rational choice theories
which assume that humans are essentially mo tivated by utility maximization,
and that because economic resources are more valuable than other resources
they are the main determinant of social action. (1992: 179, 5) Focussing on
different types of symbolic boundaries drawn by middle-class members, she
found that moral boundaries are still very salient at the discursive le vel. In her
view, even Bour di eu un de res ti ma tes mo ral boun da ri es as com pa red to
socio-economic and cultural boundaries. Mike Savage et al. (1992), in Property,
Bu re a u cracy and Cul ture, studi ed three fac ti ons of the same midd le class,
analy zing the life-style sur vey data and ot her data of pu blic-sec tor
professionals, of managers and government bureaucrats and of postmoderns
in parts of the more modern service occupations. Much like Lamont and
contrary to Bourdieu, they also found a non-distinctive group and also
stressed the importance of culture as an in dependent variable concerning class
position and habitus. They also differ from Bourdieus typology of capital as sets
by paying more attention to the organisational assets in middle-class careers
which loose weight and to an increasing fragmentation of the middle classes.
Still another encouragement to widen the scope of the Bourdieu approach
was formulated by Jan Rupp (1995, 1997), in Rethinking Cultural and Economic
Capital, who suggested to pay more attention to the horizontal axis of Bourdieus
social space. In his study on the educational strategies of workers in the Netherlands,
he noted a strong disposition for investments in the childrens cultural capital which
could be explained not only by vertical mobility striving towards petty bourgeois
standards but also by a horizontal movement towards the left or intellectual pole of
social space, towards more personal autonomy and emancipation.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

27

The implications of Rupps study point to the second question, the capacities
of the Bourdieu approach to explain change. Bourdieus own work, especially in
Distinction, mainly concentrates on the static aspects related to the reproduction of
class. Post-materialism, affluence and modern life styles are regarded, but largely
viewed from the perspective how classes change in order to conserve. This
interpretation is evidently connected with Bourdieus concentration on the upper
classes and their petty bourgeois followers, which are, by definition, interested to
defend their own elevated or elevating position. The dominated classes which, as
we will see later, comprise more or less four fifths of the total population, are only
tre a ted in a short chap ter, which hardly dif fe ren ti a tes sub-groups. Here,
Bourdieus argument is mainly that of a sceptic realism, opposed to the naive
intellectual idealisations of working class consciousness and rebellion forwarded
by leftist and orthodox Marxists in the 1970s.
Rupp (1995, 1997), instead, centers on the emancipatory potentials and
dynamics of the skilled working classes, as a development of cultural capital on the
horizontal axis. Here, Rupp also formulates a missing link relating Bourdieus class
analysis to a central field of his research, the sociology of education. This parallels
our own approach (Vester, 1992 and Vester et al., 1993, 2001), which sees class
dynamics in the contradiction of cultural processes on the horizontal axis and
power relations on the vertical axis of social space. The concepts of the axes of social
space can be enlarged, when they are related to the underlying theoretical concepts
of division and labour or differentiation (horizontal axis), of domination and
counter power (vertical axis), of the differentiation of institutional field levels
(third axis) and of time, as the medium of social practice (fourth axis). These
theoretical differentiations which are elaborated elsewhere (Vester et al., 2001,
Vester, 2002) will be treated in this article mainly implicitly, in connection with the
methodology of our research.
The third question is how the naive intellectual schematisms as criticized by
Lamont could be overcome by a methodology of typological habitus analysis.
Following the English culturalists, especially Raymond Williams (1963), E. P.
Thompson (1963) and Stuart Hall (Hall and Jefferson, 1977), it was possible to
develop the necessary hermeneutic methods. Combining it with Bourdieus
approach, we could attempt to redefine the relation between occupation and
habitus types, trying to solve the problems pointed out by the critics of the
employment aggregate approach, especially by Rosemary Crompton (1998).

The steps of milieu research

Our research was carried out in a series of studies since 1987. The basis was laid in a
first, larger project, supported by the Volkswagen Foundation. Designed after the
Bourdieu approach, it combined three levels of analysis. The most important level
was the qualitative analysis of intergenerational change of class habitus in the new

28

Michael Vester

social milieus. Its results, explicated later, supported the thesis that the new life
styles and habitus did not constitute a radical rupture but a relative modification of
the older class habitus identities. To find the causes and conditions of this
modification, it was related first to a separate statistical analysis of occupational
change in Bourdieus multidimensional social space. The data showed a strong
movement towards the left, cultural pole of social space. Was this the cause of
habitus change, as supporters of the employment aggregate approach suggested?
Or was it produced autonomously by the social milieus and movements, as the
theorists of individualization assume? To test this second hypothesis, we made
three regional case studies of the new social movements and their habitus changes.
Our research finally confirmed the hypothesis that the change of class habitus
was not the result of monocausal dynamics, either of occupational change (as
suggested, e.g., by Bell or by Giddens) or of individual self-activity (as suggested
by Beck), but it was influenced by both, in their status of necessary, but not
sufficient causes of societal change.
In order to assess the relative impact of the different forces, we had to develop
research instruments, which could relate these levels systematically for the whole
society. The only approach available to interrelate the societal dimensions was that
of Bourdieu (1992). Among these instruments, explained below, there was a specific
survey instrument, the 44-statement Milieu Indicator developed by the Sinus
Institute in Heidelberg, which promised to explore the main habitus and life-style
types of society (see SPD, 1984). Used in our representative survey, it offered us a
complete typology of milieu or habitus types, their relative size and the distribution
of the important demographic and socio-economic variables in the milieus.
This map of the totality of class milieus, however, cannot be used in an
isolated manner expecting automatic solutions. It had to be treated with care,
keeping in mind the limits of indicators which only indicate something that has to
be studied separately and directly. To avoid the risk to construct statistical artefacts,
we therefore mainly used the milieu indicator as a heuristic instrument, i.e. a tool for
further qualitative research into the milieus and their habitus. In our basic study we
only had studied the small segment of the new or alternative social milieus
going back to the 1968 movements. To explore these possible ten per cent of the total
population, we had to invest the work of about 250 long qualitative interviews,
which had to be interpreted at length to find out the habitus structures of each case.
To fill the other white spaces in the map of milieus, a series of subsequent
research projects was undertaken for which support was not always easy to be
raised. The most important of these projects were a study on the East German
milieus, conducted in the early nineties (Vester et al., 1995), a later study on
workers education (Bremer, 1999) and a study on the milieus addressed to by the
protestant church (Vgele, Bremer and Vester, 2002). In these qualitative studies,
we mainly concentrated on the milieus formerly associated with the working class
milieus and the labour movements and on their upper neighbours, the milieus of
higher education and services. By these, we could cover more or less 60 per cent of
the total population, developing a first typology, which still has to be improved by
further differentiation of sub-groups.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

29

Step by step, a highly dynamic differentiation of the modernizing milieus of

the popular and employee classes was discovered. In the gradual progress of
research, it was also necessary to test and revise the theoretical and methodological
tools. We soon observed that our original maps of social space did not allow a
consistent placing of the milieus of skilled work and their family tree. This was
only possible after a new statistical analysis of these milieus (Vester, 1998) which
helped to overcome the inconsistencies by the improved concept of axes still in use
(Vester et al., 2001). Solving problems of consistency also makes clear that much
work still has to be done to continue exploring the inner differentiation of the
milieus found and also to explore the still missing third of the population, i.e. the
more traditional and conservative milieus in the right part of social space. 1

Research questions and methodology

The basic research project,2 was designed as an empirical test of the hypotheses on the
dissolution of class and class culture, as presented by Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens
and post-modern sociology. In its qualitative parts, we concentrated on the new social
movements and milieus which were supposed to exemplify this dissolution by a
habitus of humanistic values beyond class (Offe, 1985). In further steps, we widened
our scope to West German social space as a whole which was analysed with the help of
the national occupational statistics as well as our own representative survey of 1991
and the named subsequent studies and secondary data analyses.
The research questions and the design of the project were following the
multi-level field concept of Bourdieu by first analysing three main fields (habitus
change, occupational change, and the change of social cohesion) separately and
finally integrating these fields. The methodology could not be taken ready-made
from Bourdieu.3 The following short summary may give some impression of the
operational dimensions developed during the research process.

This work is presently organized in a project on the inner differentiation, also by gender, of the
two central family trees of the milieus, the tradition line of skilled work and the tradition line
of the petty bourgeois popular classes (see Vester, 1998; Vester et al., 2001: 55-57).
The project Social structural change and the new socio-political Milieus, carried out at the
University of Hannover from 1988 to 1992, was especially supported by the Volkswagen
Foundation. The study and its methodology are documented in Vester et al., 1993, 2001. East
German society was not included because the German Democratic Republic was not accessable
when the project began in 1988 and, moreover, it constitutes a different variant of social
structure, which we studied in a separate project (Vester et al., 1995).
As shown more completely in our book, we had to develop the specific hermeneutics of typological
habitus analysis (Vester et al., 2001: 215-218, 311-369), the operational criteria of positioning
occupational groups (ib.: 219-221, 373-426) and habitus groups (ib.: 26-64) in social space and an
analysis of the field dynamics of social movements (ib.: 221, 253-279). Also newly developed was
the design of a representative survey combining attitude and socio-statistical variables according to
Bourdieus theory and to the four axes of social space (ib.: 221-250, 427-502).

30

Michael Vester

The main part of the project (point 3. in the synopsis of fig. 1) asked for the
intergenerational habitus or mentality4 change: Was it true that the alternative milieus
and the new social movements represented a new universalist habitus and practice which
was no more linked to particular class milieus?
In our habitus analyses we took the opposite procedural direction as
Bourdieu took. Bourdieu mainly started with the occupational group and then asked
what life style attributes and practices its members preferred. From these, then, he
reached, by interpretation, the habitus patterns. Interviews were mainly used to
exemplify these habitus patterns. This procedural direction certainly contributed to
Bourdieus alleged economic determinism. Our main starting point, instead, were
the attitude patterns themselves which we found by the interpretation of large
samples of non-directive biographical interviews. Only after having found the
habitus type, we asked which occupation, social relations etc. were typical or
not typical for it.
The sample of the new social milieus was recruited according to a specific
scouting procedure in the three selected regions, cho osing people with
distinctive attributes and practices of the life style of the new social milieus (ib.:
328). The sam ple con sis ted of 24 in ter vi ews for the ini ti al non-di rec ti ve
biographical interviews (which had a length up to five hours) and the subsequent
220 semi-directive interviews, controlling informally that the five basic fields of
experience were covered (see point 2. 3. in fig. 1). For the detection of habitus change
we interviewed two generations. Considering the gender differences of habitus,
the female half of the sample was interviewed as compared to the mothers and the
male half as compared to the fathers.
The habitus types were reached at according to the syndrome concept. By an
intensive procedure of text interpretation, the schemes of valuation, classification
and action (Bourdieu) and their interrelational structure in a comprehensive
habitus syndrome were extracted. The procedure followed the rules of sequence
analysis, i.e. the hermeneutic interpretation of only a few lines of text at one time by
a selected interpretation group which had to discuss and note all variants of
interpretation. In later stages, special attention was given to the balance of these
patterns according to dimensions like ascetic vs. hedonistic, dominance vs.
partnership (also in gender relations), isolation vs. cohesion, popular vs.
distinctive taste etc. Finally, the single habitus traits found in the interpretation
had to be analyzed as to their syndrome structure: How were the single traits
related, which traits had priorities (or a status of goals) and which traits were
representing competing goals or mere means etc?
Habitus structure can be understood as organized like the ethics of everyday
life, defining which values should come first in social practice (e.g., work before

German sociology is mainly following the terminology of Theodor Geiger, who already in 1932,
in the first panoramic analysis of German social structure and class mentalities, uses the term
mentality which he defines interchangably with habitus (Geiger, 1932: 13-16, 77ff; see also
Rschemeyer, 1958). To avoid misunderstandings, we are generally using the term habitus, in
this article.

31

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

1. Milieus and social practice

2. Occupational structures

3. Habitus and life styles

1.1. Dynamics of cohesion and distinction

in new social milieus

2.1.Reconstruction of the space of social

positions since 1950

3.1.Patterns of social classification in the

new milieus

Exploration of three selected regions

(Hannover, Oberhausen, Reutlingen);
expert interviews, document analyses;
elaboration of milieu biographies: phases
and patterns of development and cohesion
of alternative life style and movement
milieus. 4-12/89; 6/91-2/92

Delimitation of 163 occupational groups

according to Bourdieus capital types; data
collection and catalogization of qualitative
characteristics of each group;
agglomeration and positioning of 102
groups in soc. space; topics and dynamics
of occup. Structure. 9/88-5/89; 9-12/89;
3-6/ 92

Qualitative content analyses of documents

of everyday culture (classification and
valuation patterns in comics by Brsel,
Poth, Fr.Beker, Seyfried, in advertising, in
attributes of the life style etc.); testing the
patterns found in group discussions in
three selected sub-milieus. 9/88 - 3/89

1.2. (= 2.2.) Regional socio-structural change

Expert interviews; collection of data and documents; analysis of the phases of
socio-economic modernization and the iopening of social space since 1950;
comparison of regional development problems of de-industrialization (Oberhausen),
tertiarisation (Hannover) and industrial modernization (Reutlingen); analysis of local
social and electoral structures. 10 - 12/88; 5 - 8/89; 3 - 8/91

3.2.Habitus syndromes and generational

change
Non-directive biographical interviews in
the 3 regions: sample of 12 women and
men of the new milieus plus 12 parent
interviews of same sex; sequence
analyses and hermeneutic interpretation
of the transcripts concerning persistence
and change of habitus patterns. 3/89-1/90

1.3. Urban quarters and politics

2.3. (= 3.3.) The field of new habitus types

Expert interviews, document collection

and observation concerning attributes,
practices and topologies of everyday
culture and social cohesion of milieus in
selected urban quarters (subsequent
research projects in Hannover)

220 narrative interviews of 2-3 hours focussing on five spheres (work and occupation;
family and partnership; leisure, life style and social relations; views of society and
ideologies; socio-political participation) with members of the new milieus and one
parent of the same sex (plus standardized questionnaire and observation resp.
photographs in the home); interpretation and construction of five habitus types.
1/90 - 5/91

4. Social space as a whole

4.1.Macro-analysis of social space
Proportions, structures and dynamics of social milieus, occupational groups and socio-political camps: representative survey
Socio-political milieus in West Germany: development of the analytical instruments concerning social situations, occupational
positions, habitus, cohesion patterns in their temporal and intergenerational change; June/July 1991 by the Marplan Institute;
basic results; cluster- and factor analyses for the identification of types of habitus, cohesion and socio-political camps;
identification of modernizing zones in social space. 1/1991-7/1992, continued later
4.2. Interpretation of the basic patterns of the topics and dynamics of social space as a whole on the base of all four project parts;
integration in a concept of a pluralised class society (1 - 12/92), published in Vester et al., 1993.
4.3. Towards a completion of the qualitative milieu typology
Using the basic patterns or general map of class milieus as a heuristic tool, the qualitative analyses of habitus types and their
historical tradition lines were completed step by step in subsequent projects on the other zones of social space, especially the
three family trees of the popular classes and of higher Education; in a project on workers ecducation (published in: Bremer 1999)
using the methodologies of focussed narrative interviews (see 2.3.) and the newly developed tool of the group workshop, and in a
project on the protestant church and the social milieus in Lower Saxony (published in: Vgele, Bremer and Vester, 2002).
4.4.Completing a revised version of the macroanalysis of social space
The enlarged typology of milieus and their family trees (see 4.3. and Vester et a. 1993) and a multivariate statistical analysis of the
Meritocratic Employee Milieu (published in Vester et al., 2001) revealed contradictions in the first concept and maps of social
space (see 4.2.). The problems were solved by a revised theoretical definition of the concept of the four axes of social space (see
Vester et al., 2001). A subclustering of the milieus of the initial survey (see 4.1.) was done along these axes and produced a better
compatibility of the qualitative and the survey-based typology of now 20 milieus, grouped in 5 milieu tradition lines (see Vgele,
Bremer and Vester, 2002).

Figure 1

Research project Change of social structure and new social milieus (1988-1992) and its
completion by subsequent research

32

Michael Vester

leisure) and which should come to their right, later. In the milieus of skilled work, e.
g., personal autonomy is the primary goal, but embedded in a context of
dispositions for learning, good work performance, solidarity, mutuality, social
justice etc. By this contextual interpretation the classification of the working classes
by isolated properties can be replaced. These properties, e. g. physical work or
collectivism, which lay at the base of the intellectual myth of the proletariat, are
seen to be traits which do occur under special conditions but are not essential for
class identity. The complete syndrome structures are exemplified in the typological
descriptions, later in this text.
The attitude syndromes were first analysed for each case separately. In a
second step, the individual cases had to be grouped to types according to their
different syndrome structures.5 The cases of our sample could be easily separated
into five habitus syndromes or types of the new social milieus, which could be
easily distinguished by their basic structures. For each of the five types a portrait
was formulated (2001: 331-363). Later, the types could be identified as the youngest
and most radical parts of already existing parent milieus. Most interesting among
these newly discovered types was the Modern Employee Milieu, a descendant of
the Traditional Working Class Milieu, which grew to 8 per cent of the population,
until 2000.
The habitus types of the younger generation were not completely different
from the parent generation, as the individualisation thesis supposes, but variations
of the same basic patterns which. This confirmed our initial hypothesis of a
generational habitus metamorphosis, which had been inspired by the Birmingham
cultural studies (Hall and Jefferson, 1977). To find the generational similarities was
mainly possible because each type could be formulated in rather general terms of
the moral and symbolic meaning and not by the surface attributes and
practices of life style, which expectedly differed between the generations.
The next part of the study (no. 2 in fig. 1) asked for the dynamics of the
occupational field: How was habitus change linked to changes in the occupational and
economic position? And where was this occupational change to be located in the total
occupational change of West Germany? The changes of the occupational field since
1950 were analysed by processing the available occupational data according to the
ascending method of Geiger (1932: 17f) and Bourdieus concept of social space.
Geigers method was designed to avoid a main fallacy of the employment
aggregate approaches. Geiger did not start with the larger occupational categories
but split them into smaller, elementary groups, in order to get more adequate
approximations to the cultural and practical dimensions of occupational groups.
The new groups were less heterogeneous in the specific properties of professional

They were not grouped according to types already existing, e.g. in the typologies of Williams
(1963) or Bourdieu (1992). They were also not grouped according to single traits, e.g.
individualization or post-materialism. Not single statements or attitudes but the interrelation of
the statements, the structure of their syndrome as a whole concept of an everyday ethic (Weber),
allowed to group them together. To find a valid typological structure, a maximum of about
twenty cases was necessary. Additional cases gave little additional information.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

33

situation, income, tradition, organizational status etc. After this, Geiger regrouped
them one by one into larger, more homogeneous units, thus ascending from the
single, elementary group to possible larger units. By analysing 163 occupational
groups this way,6 we could map a selection of important occupational fields,
especially in the sectors of the educational, health, technical and agricultural
occupations also divided by gender cleavages (Vester et al., 2001: 413-422).
The principal result of this part of the study was that, according to the data
since 1950, there was a significant movement from the right to the left pole of social
space. This supported the hypothesis of a historical drift towards more cultural
capital on all vertical levels of society. These findings had important consequences
for the theories of the tertiary knowledge society (Bell, 1973). On the one hand,
these tendencies were strongly represented in the data, showing a rise of tertiary
occupations from about 20 to almost 60 per cent up to 1990. But this growth mainly
remained a horizontal movement which did not basically change the vertical
relations of domination between social classes and also the gender, age and
eth nic clas ses. As a con se quen ce, it could be seen that clas ses, whet her
occupational or cultural, did not erode but only move to the left part of social space.
This implies that social conflict, too, did not disappear but move towards a new
level of class conflict, based on the higher competences and aspirations for
autonomy in the popular milieus.
The third part of the study (point 1 in fig. 1) was dedicated to the logic and
patterns of the change of everyday culture and of political camps: How did the
milieus of the new social movements develop their cohesion and identity since the end
sixties? Case histories in the three regions showed by which logics, especially
dynamics of conflicts and coalitions, the new movements and milieus had
developed in the regional field of socio-political camps.
The main finding of this part of the study was that protest action primarily
did not arise according to a logic of repression, material or moral deprivation or
marginalisation, as the conventional hypotheses will have it. Also, the new
identities were not only linked to occupational change, as the employment
aggregate approach suggests. Almost half of the persons interviewed in the survey
who shared the new, more qualified and modernized occupational profiles did not
share the new habitus dispositions. This supports the hypothesis that habitus change
was due to a more general change in the societal field of forces, i.e. the opening of
social space for hitherto unrealized or unrealizable designs of life (according to the
theory of Merleau-Ponty (1965: 503-508) and to the social and political conflicts
between the generations (see Hall and Jefferson, 1977) since the sixties.
The last part (point 4. in fig. 1) aimed at a synthesis, i.e. the changes of the class
configuration as a whole: How did the dynamics of the different fields, studied separately
in the first parts, correlate? How representative were the selected milieus for social
6

Each group was assessed according to a catalogue of eleven socio-economic properties: size and
change of size since 1950, gender, age, educational and occupational diploma, occupational
position, economic sector, main activity, weekly working time, net income of full and part time
employed, immigrant quotas, incidence of unemployment (ib.: 381).

34

Michael Vester

1. Habitus and politics

Everyday culture (1.1. -1.3.) and

socio-political orientations (1.4.-1.6.)

ANALYTICAL CATEGORIES

NO. & CONTENTS OF QUESTION

INTERROGATION MODEL/TIME (MIN.)

1.1 Habitus (mentality types)

(1) basic attitudes towards everyday culture

aspects (work/leisure motivation,
hedonistic/ascetic preferences, gender and family
relations, technological progress and politics)

milieu indicator, with 44 statements and a four

degree scale of consent and dissent, developed
by, used with permission of and data-processed by
the Sinus institute, Heidelberg (12)

1.2. Social cohesion (styles of gregariousness)

(7) basic attitudes towards social relations with

family, friends and acquaintances

1.3. Leisure practices (places of activities)

(13) frequency and scope of different gregarious,

social, cultural and political leisure actrivities
(social places and circles)

indicator of cohesion, with 39 statements

(developed from the projects qualitative
interviews) and a four degree scale of consent and
dissent (10)
list of 22 items and a scale of six degrees of
activity (6)

1.4. Socio-political camps (political styles)

(12) basic attitudes towards the social and political indicator of political styles, modified by the
project, with 45 statements and a four degree
order (social justice, political participation and
scale of consent and dissent (10)
representation, socio-political cleavages)

1.5. Political participation

(P) degree of interest in specific political issues

(4) party sympathies
(8) vote in 1987 general election
(14) vote in 1990 general election

closed question, five alternatives (0,5) five cards

for party ranking (0,5)
closed qn., nine alternatives (0,5)
closed question, 12 alternatives (0,5)

1.6. Socio-political tradition lines

(15b) trade union membersh.of father

open question (0,5)

2. Social situations and positions

community status - Vergemeinschaftung (2.1.-2.4.) and

societal status - Vergesellschaftung (2.5.-2.6.)

ANALYTICAL CATEGORIES

NO. & CONTENTS OF QUESTION

INTERROGATION MODEL/TIME (MIN.)

2.1. Type of Vergemeinschaftung

(household and family type)

(2) family status

(9) permanent partnership relation
(3) way of living together (with
partner/parents/children/friends/alone)
(L) no. of persons in household
(M) age of the household members

closed question, four alternatives (0,5)

open question (0,5)
closed question, four alternatives (0,5)

2.2. Status in Vergemeinschaftung

(A) gender
(B) age
(16) religious affiliation

(noted by interviewer)
open question (0,5)
closed question, four alternatives (0,5)

2.3. Societal status of partner

(social, cultural, econ. capital)

(10) present occup. status of partner

(11) present or last occup.of partner

closed question, 11 alternatives (0,5)

open question (coded according to occup.
statistics) (0,5)

2.4. Territorial milieu

(region, location, home)

(Q) size of building (no. of homes)

(-) size of location (political)
(-) federal state

(noted by interviewer)
(noted by interviewer)
(noted by interviewer)

2.5. Social status of the interviewed person

(cultural and economic capital)

(C) highest school diploma achieved

(D) highest occ.diploma achieved
(E) present occupational status
(F) present or last occupation
(G) occupational activity field (producing,
transporting, office etc.)
(H) present or last occup.position
(K) resources of living
(O) personal net income (monthly)
(N) household net income (monthly)

closed qn., seven alternatives (0,5)

closed question, six alternatives (0,5)
closed question, 12 alternatives (0,5)
open qn.(coded by occ.statistics) (0,5)
closed question, 17 alternatives (0,5)

(5) school diploma of father/mother

(6) last occupational status of father, mother and
grandfathers

closed question, 7 alternatives (1)

closed question, 26 alternatives resp. additional
question (2)

2.6. Social status of the parent and grand parent

generations
(intergenerational mobility)

Figure 2

open questions (0,5)

open question (1)

closed
closed
closed
closed

Analytical categories and instruments of the representative survey

question, 26 alternatives (1)

qun.for 2 of 10 alternatives (1)
question, 12 alternatives (1)
question, 12 alternatives (1)

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

35

structure as a whole? What was their size and location in relation to the other social
milieus? These questions were studied by the representative survey of the 1991
West German population.7
Constructing the multi-dimensional questionnaire according to the Bourdieu
approach (see fig. 2 and Vester et al., 2001: 222-244, 546-557), each interviewed
person could be located on all field levels simultaneously. For each level we could
construct independent maps and then see which types of habitus were related to
which types of occupation, social cohesion, ideological camp etc. (Hall and
Jefferson, 1977). A central prerequisite was to find a possibility to identify the class
milieus by their habitus types. For this we were permitted to use the 44 statement
milieu-indicator developed and validated by the Sinus Institute (ib.: 546-548). This
indicator had been constructed to relate qualitative habitus analysis to habitus
detection by standardized methods. Without such an instrument representative
surveys could not disclose what proportion of the total population belonged to the
habitus types originally found by qualitative interviews (carried out as described
above). Initially, the Sinus Institute had extracted the statements of the indicator
from large numbers of non-directive interviews. It was soon clear that the
multidimensionality of the types did not allow batteries with less than forty
statements. The answers are processed by a special clustering procedure, which fixes
the centers of the clusters in order to reproduce the types in follow-up surveys.
When Sinus developed the indicator around 1982, the validity of the types
was tested by various validation procedures and by applying the indicator to a
so-called calibrating sample, i.e. a sample which before had been typologically
analysed by qualitative interviews. Meanwhile, the indicator has been successfully
applied for samples adding to more than 60.000.
In our own research, we used the indicator mainly as a heuristic tool for two
different purposes. First, it helped to quantify, on a representative level, the milieu
types which we had found by qualitative methods, before. Second it helped to
define the sample for qualitative research in those parts of social space about which
we did not yet have sufficient knowledge. This latter procedure was especially
used in our studies on the target groups of trade union adult education and of the
Protestant church (Bremer, 1999, Vgele et al., 2002).
This also helped us to correct inconsistencies of the Sinus model. In general,
the milieu indicator produces valid distinctions between the different types of
milieus. It is evident that the differences between hedonistic and ascetic milieus are
based on clear qualitative differences of the everyday ethics, which can also be
easily reproduced by statistical procedures. However, there are also milieus and
sub-milieus where the analysis of differences is more complicated. This was
especially the case between certain milieu factions of the Meritocratic Employee
Milieu and the Modern Petty Bourgeois Employee Milieu. Qualitative research
revealed that these sub-factions both believe in social hierarchies, which, however,
7

The interviews were made in June and July of 1991 by the Marplan Institute, with a random
sample of 2.699 German speaking inhabitants of 14 years and older, representative according to
the demographic structure of the 1988 micro census.

36

Michael Vester

for the first group is based on personal work achievement (leistung) and for the
second group is based on hierarchical relations of loyalty. But, in modern German
milieus, hierarchies are not openly legitimated by other than work achievement criteria.
It was, however, possible to find the underlying differences by clustering procedures
splitting the milieus into more homogeneous sub-groups which allowed a re-grouping.8
In our survey, additional dimensions of habitus were explored by three other
item batteries and with questions concerning political and trade union participation
as well as trade union participation of the parent generation (see fig. 2).
From the habitus types we proceeded to the second level, the occupational
field. Thus, we could identify the typical occupational profile of each milieu. It is
important to note that none of these profiles followed the distinctions of the official
statistics, i.e. between production and services, secondary and tertiary sectors, blue
and white collar etc. Instead, according to the data, the occupational profiles of the
milieus rather followed (in a loose but clearly significant relation) the capital
dimensions of Bourdieu. When we locate the milieus in Bourdieus map (fig. 3) we
see that no milieu is exclusively limited to a single occupational aggregate. Instead,
each milieu spreads over a certain zone of social space, which covers occupations
with similar combinations of cultural and economic capital.
Our hypothesis had been that habitus changes might at least in part be related to a
secular increase of educational and cultural capital and in the growth of occupations
requiring high standards of cultural capital, on the horizontal axis of social space. Our
results confirmed this horizontal movement. As already noted, only about one half of
the people who took part in this movement also could be counted as part of the
modernized younger mentality types. This confirms the assumption that the mere growth
of cultural capital and a respective leftward movement of the social position may well be a
necessary cause of modernized habitus. But it is not a sufficient cause. It presumably will
not lead to a more autonomous and less hierarchical habitus when the biographical
conflict, the active sub-cultural struggle for emancipated life-styles is not waged.
As will be summed up at the end of this article, our empirical data confirm
that criticism of the employment aggregate approaches to class analysis, as
discussed especially by Rosemary Crompton (1998), is highly justified and that
the Bourdieu-based milieu approach can help to solve several of these problems.

The field structure of social space

To understand milieu change, it is especially important to understand how the

total map of class milieus or class cultures may be structured. We could show this
by three ways to locate the milieus.

The analysis of the two types, which was made by Gisela Wiebke, is to be found in Vgele et al.,
2002, pp. 338-356, 371-376.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

Figure 3

Location of the milieus in Bourdieus space of occupational positions

37

38

Michael Vester

The first way, shown in fig. 3, is to locate each milieu in Bourdieus social space
according to the occupations of its members. The elliptic lines surround the field
zones in which the majority of each milieu have their occupational position. There is a
certain spreading but also a centre of gravitation in the field. Three of the milieus are
dividing the upper part of space among themselves. One of the milieus is confined to
the lower pole of space. Five of the milieus share the middle. They are highly
differentiated on the horizontal axis, from a shrinking petty bourgeois employee
milieu in the right half to growing Modern Employee Milieus in the left half.
This first map (fig. 3) clearly shows a relative homology between economic
and habitus position. The positions the milieus take in the division of labour are
corresponding to a sort of functional division between the other activities of life as
structured by the habitus. Apparently, life style and habitus, as distinctive signs
and practices by which milieu members are finding a common identity and are
distinguishing themselves from other milieus, are the expression of a field of
structured social relations and tensions which are based on complementary
positions of the milieus.
In the second graph (fig. 4) we have grouped the milieus synoptically
to get her to show the ir his to ri cal tra di ti on li nes as well as the ir in ter nal
differentiation. In the case of the respectable popular classes, the data allow to
show a habitus metamorphosis manifested in a sort of family tree. The tradition
line of skilled work (no. 2. 1. the offsprings of the classical working class) consists
of three generational groups: the vanishing old generation of the Traditional
Working Class, the big, but stagnant middle generation of the Meritocratic
Employee Milieu and the growing younger generation of the Modern Employee
Milieu. This pattern of generational modernization does also show, in different
degrees, in Britain, France, and Italy (annexes A1, A2, A3) for which we have the
Sinus milieu data (see Vester et al., 2001: 34-36, 50-54).
The third graph (fig. 5) is structured not by the occupational positions but by
the habitus types. For this positioning we recurred to the implicit principles of
distinction by which each group delimitates itself from the other groups and which
are described in the next parts of this article. The top is taken by three milieus
around 20 per cent who distinguish themselves from the ordinary or popular
milieus below them by their valuation of higher education and culture and the
competences of taste. Below this line of distinction we find the popular classes
(about 70 per cent) for whom qualified work or a secure and respected social status
is the base of self-respect. Below them, we discover the milieus of the underclass,
with poor education and skills (about 10 per cent). They are less respected also
be ca u se of the ir cul tu ral ha bits adap ted to a si tu a ti on of in se cu rity and
powerlessness. They are below what we may call the line of respectability.
Curiously enough, this vertical proportioning of society (20: 70: 10) supports
what Goldthorpe et al. (1968) found out in the 1960s about one of the images of
society: a strong respectable middle, topped by the rich and powerful and
substratified by the underprivileged.
In the same map, we can also see a horizontal division of three zones
separated by two cleavage lines. A cleavage line of authoritarian status orientation

39

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

Vertical class pyramid and its horizontal

differentiation by tradition lines

Differentiation of the tradition lines by sub-groups

resp. generations in West Germany (1982-2000)

1. Dominant Milieus
[subdivisions corresponding to upper service class
(a) and lower service class resp. middle class (b)]
1.1.Tradition line of power and property: milieus of the
economic and state functional lites (c. 10%)

1.1.The Conservative Technocratic Milieus

(.9% - c. 10%)
(a) The Grand Bourgeois Milieu
(b) The Petty Bourgeois Milieu

1.2. Tradition line of Higher Education and Services:

milieus of the humanist and service functional lites
(c. 10%)

1.2.The Liberal Intellectual Milieus

(c. 9% - c. 10%)
(a) The Progressive lite of Higher Learning
(b) The Milieu of the Higher Socio-Cultural Services

1.3. Tradition line of the cultural vanguard (c. 5%)

1.3.The Alternative Milieu (c. 5% - 0%)

The Post-modern Milieu (0% - c. 6%)

2. Milieus of the respectable popular and employee

classes [subdivisions corresponding to generations
(a,b,c)]
2.1.Tradition line of skilled work and practical
intelligence (c. 30%)

2.1.(a) The Traditional Working Class Milieu

(c. 10% - c. 4%)
(b) The Meritocratic Employee Milieu (c. 20% - c. 18%)
(c) The Modern Employee Milieu (0% - c. 8%)

2.2. Tradition line of the petty bourgeois popular

classes
(between 28% and 23%)

2.2.(a) The Petty Bourgeois Employee Milieu

(c. 28% - c. 14%)
(b) The Modern Petty Bourgeois Employee Milieu
(0% - c. 8%)

2.3. Vanguard of youth culture (c. 10%)

2.3. The Hedonist Milieu (c. 10% - c. 12%)

3. Underprivileged popular classes (between 8% and

13%) [subdivisions corresponding to orientation
towards the three respectable popular milieus]

3.The Underprivileged Employee Milieus (a) The Status

Oriented (c. 3%)
(b) The Fatalists (c. 6%)
(c) The Hedonist Rebels (c. 2%)

Figure 4

Tradition lines of class cultures (milieus) in West Germany

Note: The allocation of West German Milieus is based on our own representative Survey of 1991 (Vester et al.,
1993, 2001). The percentage data concerning West Germany were taken from Sinus surveys (SPD, 1984,
Becker et al., 1992, Flaig et al., 1993, Spiegel, 1996, stern, 2000).

delimits the petty bourgeois and conservative groups at the right margin. In the
horizontal middle, we find the milieus for which work is the base of self-reliance
and self-consciousness. At the left margin, the cleavage line of the vanguard separates
the hedonistic or cultural vanguard with its idealistic orientations, distinct from
the balancing realism of the middle.
Finally, the axis of time is shown by the inner differentiation of the tradition
lines. While Bourdieu (1992: 585-619) treated the popular classes in a rather short
and summary way, we found this elaborate differentiation of the popular milieus.
Each tradition line resembles a family tree, the younger branches ma inly
distinguishing themselves from the older by modernised cultural capital and

40

Figure 5

Michael Vester

The map of West German Class Milieus

habitus. (As the younger branches are distinguished by modernized cultural

capital and habitus, they are located a little higher and a little more to the left,
symbolized by a thin diagonal distinction line.) Our synopsis (fig. 4) shows how
this inner differentiation increased in a slow but constant movement, since 1982.
The presentation of the results of the 1991 representative survey could take
advantage of the fact that the Sinus Institute continued to use the milieu indicator
in its surveys which allowed us to adapt our data on the macrological proportions
up to the year of 2000. The readers will notice that the changes are relatively modest
another support of the assumption that milieu change mainly is a long-term
change by generations.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

41

The dominant class milieus: power, property and education

The upper social space is divided into five sub-milieus united culturally in their
distinction from those who have little academic education and are less propertied
and influential. This corresponds with their occupational concentration in the
fields of the larger employers, of higher corporate and public management and of
the professions.
At first sight, the dominant milieus as a whole remind of the service class,
as defined by Goldthorpe (1980). But Goldthorpes employment aggregate
approach which suggests a rather affirmative cultural homogeneity of the service
class cannot differentiate the factions which lie at the roots of the dynamics of change
in the upper milieus.9 Thus, it is certainly not true that the service class is united by the
trust in the employer. Like the research of Savage et al. (1992) on the middle class, our
empirical evidence in principle supports Bourdieus identification of sub-groups as
distinguished by their different strategies of social action. These factionings, which are
essential for political and generational change, cannot be identified by the Goldthorpe
approach, due to its confinement to vertical differences.
On the horizontal axis, we could identify three formations which, in
tendency, correspond to the differences found by Bourdieu and by Savage et al. The
first two of these formations are the tradition lines of power and property and of
higher learning and higher socio-cultural services.
In addition, inside each of the two lines we found an upper and a lower
faction. These are somewhat similar to the findings of Herz (1990) who, in West
Germany too, distinguished an upper and a lower service class by levels of
competence. But there is more to these differences than occupational competence.
Especially, the two upper groups play a culturally hegemonic role for the two lower
groups. Their cultural and social capital has been handed on since many generations
and is the highest in the society. The first of the two hegemonic groups follows the
grand bourgeois tradition, the second group follows the tradition of humanist higher
learning. The two lower groups are less endowed, the first being on the way
downward, the second on the way upward. Below the grand bourgeois faction we
find an aged petty bourgeois faction stemming from medium employers, civil
servants and farmers with outdated endowments of cultural capital. Contrasting with
this is the group we find below the humanist intellectual lite. It is a modern and
relatively dynamic service lite, which made its way upwards from the intellectual
factions of the milieus of skilled workers and employees below them.
9

Analysing the West German service class according to the Goldthorpe approach, Thomas Herz
(1990) started from mainly the same occupational groups as we arrived at. Consequently, the
sizes are rather similar, i.e. between 20 and 23 per cent (Herz, 1990: 234) and between 18 and 20
per cent (Vgele, Bremer and Vester 2002, 275-309). However, Herz remains confined to the
limits of the employment aggregate approach, which cannot give differentiated information
on milieus as action aggregates. He can give only wholesale information on the criteria of
socio-cultural class cohesion, stating as common a high concentration of cultural capital, of
privileges, of intergenerational continuity and of a common cultural identity.

42

Michael Vester

Concerning the career patterns, the Bourdieu criterion of social capital is

very helpful to explain the dimensions of historical class reproduction and class
reconversion as a whole. If we consider the specific dynamics to reach and to
maintain occupational positions, this can be better specified by the asset approach
of Savage et al. (1992) paying specific attention to the organisational resources and
relations in the occupational world.
A third horizontal formation is found at the left margin of space. It is a milieu
of the socio-cultural vanguard which is not simply to be explained by the same
in ter ge ne ra ti o nal ac cu mu la ti ons of cul tu ral, eco no mic, so ci al and/or
organizational capital. As a cultural or political vanguard group, it is a result of the
periodical secession from the core milieus of the top, waged by younger candidates
for symbolic lite functions.

The tradition line of power and property (1. 1.)

The tradition line of the Conservative-Technocratic Milieus (now about 10 per cent)
is united by a habitus of an explicit sense of success, hierarchy and power, of a
distinctive taste and of the exclusivity of their social circles and networks. They are
the milieus of property and of institutional domination. To them belong the
best-established parts of the employers, the professions, of the private and public
managements and administrations, and of science and culture.
Since 1945, the old authoritarian capitalist, state and military upper class factions
of Germany have lost their dominant positions to more modern and democratic
younger factions legitimating their hegemony as an lite of merit, education and
technocratic modernization and by cultivating a political discourse of social
partnership with the employee classes, supporting the new historical compromise of
the institutionalized class conflict (Geiger 1949, Dahrendorf 1957).
The dominant group follows the grand bourgeois tradition of erudite and
tolerant conservatism. According to the data, its members mainly consist of higher
private and public managers, the owners of medium and big enterprises and
members of the most privileged professions (especially in the medical and
jurisprudence sectors). They belong to these groups at least in the third generation.
This implies a long accumulation of social and cultural capital. Thus, the
sub-milieu has one of the highest quotas of cultural capital: 37 per cent have Abitur
(the secondary school diploma attesting the maturity to study at a university), 31
per cent have a university diploma.
In contrast, the dominated petty bourgeois faction of the milieu has
surprisingly modest standards of cultural capital (very near to the survey averages
of 13 percent for Abitur and of 5 per cent for the university diploma). Most of them
completed their educational careers in professional schools and then enter the
career ladders inside private or public managements. This pattern is connected
with specific family traditions. The parents, too, had reached only average

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

43

educational diplomas and, like the grandparents, were employers, civil servants
and farmers of the medium level. This petty-bourgeois pattern of medium
resources and sustained career efforts corresponds to a cultural tradition of a rather
strict and less tolerant conservatism. The socio-historic explanation of these
specifics is evident when we consider the age of the milieu members. Two thirds
are over 65, the rest largely over 55 years of age (Wiebke, 2002: 304). This indicates
that the group is largely identical with that faction of the bourgeois class, which was
not able to join the reconversion towards or reinforcement of strategies of education
which the majority of the bourgeois milieus made in the 1960s (see Bourdieu and
Passeron, 1971) and consequently is leaving the historical stage, by and by.
Despite of these differences, the factions are united in their policies of
closure, rarely admitting newcomers and up-starts to their circles. These
policies, in Germany, are implemented mainly by subtle habitus and cultural
selection (Hartmann, 1998), working also as informal access barriers in the
educational system.

The tradition line of higher education and higher services (1. 2.)

The second tradition line distinguishes itself exactly against this power conscious
exclusiveness. Its milieus are not occupying the very highest but the higher
ranks of administration and civil service, of the professions, the cultural, social and
educational sectors and the arts. Being not at the very top, they tend to call
themselves middle class, while Bourdieu defines them as the dominated
faction of the dominating classes.
Opposing the materialism of its rivals, the Liberal-Intellectual Milieu (about
10 per cent) prefers distinction in cultural terms, combined with the assertion that
everybody could achieve higher intellectual standards if he or she only wanted. The
mi li eu le gi ti ma tes it self as an en ligh te ned van guard, respon si ble for the
universalistic values of justice, peace and democracy and for the social and
ecological problems caused by economic progress. Their claim of cultural hegemony
over society is somewhat mediated by benevolent or caritative condescension.
Moreover, there are differences between the two sub-groups of the milieu.
The dominating sub-group, the Progressive Elite of Higher Learning (about 5
per cent) is following older family traditions of humanist orientation. The
grandparents already belonged to the well-educated upper stratum of mainly
professionals, higher civil servants and self-employed. Today, they unite the
ma jo rity of the aca de mic in tel li gent sia in the oc cu pa ti ons of na tural and
engineering as well as the social and cultural sciences, in the sectors of publishing,
the media and advertising and in the pedagogical, psychological and therapeutical
services. As already their grandparents, they have high standards of cultural
capital, i.e. 41 per cent have an Abitur and 23 per cent have a university diploma.
Their litist progressism combines ascetic work ethics with an ethos of high

44

Michael Vester

professional performance and often with very distinctive cultural practices,

expressive self-stylization and a sense for unconventional ways.
The dominated faction is the modernized Milieu of the Higher Socio-Cultural
Services (about 4 per cent). It concentrates in higher administration (often
con nec ted with new in for ma ti on tech no lo gi es), es pe ci ally in pu blic
administration, financial departments and publishing sectors. Women, in addition
to this, often work in advisory, medical-technical and educational occupations. The
milieus cultural capital is high only on the Abitur level (27 per cent) and lower in
university diplomas (11 per cent) as, after school, most of them pass a professional
school before starting a career in their occupation. Most of their parents and
grandparents were skilled blue or white collar workers as well as small employers, i.e.
mainly part of the tradition line of skilled work (2. 1.) with its appreciation for
education. Their way into the upper milieus was facilitated by the expansion of new
qualified occupations in the economy and in the welfare state, after 1950. The heritage
of the skilled workers culture of modesty explains why this milieu keeps a certain
distance to the expressive and distinctive self-stylization of the dominant faction.

The tradition line of the cultural vanguard (1. 3.)

In the early 1990s, the place of the vanguard milieu was still taken by the old
Alter na ti ve Mi li eu charac te ri zed by the life-styles and ide als of the 1968
movements. Its members were mainly academic intellectuals working in the
educational, research and cultural sectors as well as in the medical, therapeutical
and social services, or preparing for these activities as students. They have a high
rate of Abitur diplomas (28 per cent) and a rate of university diplomas which, with
regard to the fact that many are still students, is also high (18 per cent).
Culturally, the group professed the post-materialist values of personal
eman ci pa ti on, in di vi du a lity, aut hen ti city as well as the uni ver sa lis tic or
class-less va lu es in the fi elds of gen der, eth ni city, eco logy, pe a ce and
participatory democracy. Since the early 1980s, when the respective movements
succeeded to form the Green Party, the milieu had found increasing public
acceptance. In turn, the alternative values were practiced in less class-less and
increasingly realistic forms. Many former protesters had reached their tacit
biographical aim to become part of the lites. In this process, the milieu, which in
1991 was already down to 2 per cent, was gradually re-absorbed by its parent
milieu, the progressive lite of higher learning.
Meanwhile, its place has been taken by new and younger vanguard milieu,
the Post-Modern Milieu (about 5 per cent). It combines esthetic vanguardism and a
self-oriented ambition to get to the top of life-style, consumption and social
positions. Mainly, its members are up-starts, often younger than 35, with higher
education and still living as singles. They are students or young academics
working on a medium employee, profession or employer level, preferably in

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

45

vanguard occupations of symbolic services, culture, the media, the new technologies,
the arts and architecture, but also younger barristers, accountants and surveyors. (This
composition is very near to the postmoderns found by Savage et al. and partly to the
new petty bourgeoisie described by Bourdieu.) Meanwhile, the dreams of the new
economy have given place to an increasing realism, and the milieu may well be
re-absorbed by its parent-milieus in order to be replaced by the next vanguard.

The respectable popular and employee classes

The difference of the Bourdieu and the milieu approaches, as compared to the
employment aggregate approaches, is especially evident when we turn to the
popular classes. Here, we find a horizontal differentiation between rather static
and traditionalist milieus of employees (which largely consists of the offsprings of
the former small owners), a group of rather dynamic employee milieus combining
the search for education and autonomy with a sense of solidarity (being the
offsprings of the former working class) and, finally, a vanguard of life-style (which
mainly turns out to be a transitional stage of the children of the two other groups.)10
It is important to note that, contrary to the ahistoric myth of proletarian
collectivism, the key value of the new working or employee class is autonomy
which it already was when the working class was made (Thompson, 1968, Vester,
1970) and which it also still is in Britain (Savage, 2000).

Work orientation: the self-reliant labouring classes (2. 1.)

An additional remarkable result, confirmed by our survey data, is that the milieus
of the skilled working class, which historically formed the core of the labour
movement, have not eroded in their numbers or habitus. They keep representing
one third of the population (see fig. 4)11 although they changed their appearance.
Contrary to Beck and Giddens, taking part in the structural change towards more
tertiary and white collar occupations did not mean giving up the basic dispositions
of personal autonomy, ascetic work ethics and mutual help, though increasingly
balanced by a moderate hedonism in the younger generations. Their main groups
are the self-re li ant and skil led blue and whi te-col lar wor kers in mo dern
occupations and a smaller faction of the small owners.
10
11

This is shown below, in the portrait of the woman who reconciled herself with work after a
period of refusal.
Bismarck (1957) named the same percentage for the 1950s, and there are indications for a long
historical duration of this quota.

46

Michael Vester

The value system is opposed to that of the petty bourgeois popular classes
whose central value is social status, derived from hierarchical relations. Instead,
for the milieus of skilled work and practical intelligence, autonomy is the central
value, and it is primarily based on what a person can create independently, by his
or her work and practice. This striking parallel to the diagnosis of Savage (2000) is
well illustrated by the small portraits included in the text.
The other values are more or less derived from this. Education and culture are
seen as an important means to develop personal competences of work, autonomy and
orientation. Different personal achievements of work and learning may legitimate a
certain differentiation or hierarchy in the social order. But this hierarchy of skills does not
legitimate any class domination. Accordingly, natural or power inequalities as well
as deference towards social, religious or political authorities are abhorred. Work
orientation founds a meritocratic sense of equality. The value of a person should
depend on the practical works, independent from gender, ethnic or class belongings.
all in your own responsibility
(A Traditional Worker)
Karl, aged 48, after secondary school and an apprenticeship as a carpenter, works at Volkswagen as a
toolmaker. With his wife, a nurse, he lives in his own house in a small town. They have a son of 25.
Karls father was a carpenter, too, his mother was a housewife.
Going to Volkswagen was not only the financial way to fulfil his youths dream to build
my own hut, here, but also a struggle for autonomy at work. First working in a department with
degrading work and catastrophic emissions, he risked severe personal conflicts to be promoted to
his present working place which is rather good, a surrounding (of workmates) that fits: You
work independently, one is allowed to decide by oneself how it is done and so, is all in your own
responsibility.
In his leisure time, Karl is rather active, as a hobby photographer, going to the theatre, doing
carpenter work in his house, acquiring his yachting certificate. He meets his friends for card playing
but does not like to be a club person: Id rather be independent. However, this does not limit his
political activity, in the trade union and also the Social Democratic Party where he contributes to a
magazine being challenged to activate his talents to write: These are things to keep you going,
mentally, in order to have something different, a very different metier. Karl actively participates in
the courses of workers education, distinguishing himself from the young frustrated workers
interested in nothing, with their assembly line faces. He likes the courses to be well organized
and socially useful, e.g. relating his hobby photographing with the presentation of societal
problems.
Meanwhile, Karl says, I have got myself everything I wanted to have (a house, a sailing boat,
a computer etc.), but always caring that I really earned it, first. At the sametime, he is severely
worried about the unemployment of his son and his wife: There, I dont have a perspective.
Although active in labour politics, he is critical: the trade union is too much a closed bunch,
blocking unfamiliar ideas. (Bremer, 1999: 104-106)

Solidarity is not a value in itself but a necessary con dition of personal au to nomy
which is thought to be dependent on mu tual help and co-operation. It does not
mean collectivism but is following the older tradition of neigbourly help and
emergency ethics (Weber, 1964), which, is manifestly mobilized only on special
occasions and for special cases. If somebody is in distress without being

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

47

personally responsible for it, help is the neighbours duty. This principle is also
transferred to the political field. The welfare state should not support any
feather-bedding. But it should help everybody who is in need without be ing
responsible for this situation.
Work and life style are largely structured by a special variant of Weberian
protestant ethic, a rational and realistic method of conducing life. In this variant,
however, work and self-discipline again are not values in themselves, which lead
to the proverbial puritan morosity, but combined with the conviction to be entitled
to enjoy the fruits of the own and common efforts and to receive social justice.
This general value pattern may articulate in many different ways, according
to the field situation. In situations of declassment and humiliation it may motivate
militant collective action. In a situation of occupational change it may motivate
reconversions for new occupational fields by strong educational efforts on a family
level. In a situation of prosperity, personal acquisition may come to the fore.
Historically, the habitus pattern itself may shift the balance of its different traits as
new generations with new formative experiences are developing their own ways.
Our data permit to distinguish three milieus each of which is mainly centered
around a different age cohort.
that I reconciled myself with work
(A Meritocratic and Former Hedonist Employee)
Christiane is aged 43. As her mother, she is an employee in public administration, while her father is
an engineer. After secondary school she hanged around at schools for quite some time, before her
parents (now it is enough) made her go to a training for an office occupation. However, she started
her professional career only after the five years of her first marriage, when she was alone with her
little son. Now, she lives together with her second husband, a dental technician, and her son.
Interest in my occupation has grown by and by as years passed and as family obligations
became less absorbing. She acquired additional education and a more interesting post in her office.
However: It could be a little more responsibility. Consequently she put up with the additional
strain and costs of a correspondence course to prepare for a further advancement. At her age, she is
glad to have found my warm place, that I reconciled myself with work and even find it
interesting. The pragmatic orientation of usefulness is also valid for her interest in adult education.
She prefers purposeful programmes, not chatting clubs where everybody tells what he is doing
and possibly returns home as stupid as he came. She wants to get something into her hand, while
the surrounding does not have to be luxurious.
This all leaves her little time for her leisure activities (photographing, movies, museums and
exhibitions), which she shares with her husband. Material things should not be put to the front
although they are not unimportant. Most important, however, is the reliability of social relations for
which you have to do something not only making use of it unilaterally We have lived to be
there for others. Her present husband is a good and equalitarian partner, still interesting after 12
years, despite different opinions on education.
Political education is important to be informed and to understand articles in the press. But: You
can read much, but it is better to discuss it with others. As already her mother, she is active in the works
council, without considering this as political. Trade unions are indispensable as representatives of
the interests of the employees, but their structures have become too rigid and immobile. Therefore, she
would not become a trade union militant: I would probably be fed up, soon
(Bremer, 1999: 128-130).

48

Michael Vester

The Traditional Working Class Milieu, a sort of grandparent generation, is still

identified with the necessities of physical work and scarcity. In West Germany, it
melted down to about four per cent. Here, the distance to the powerful is felt most
while the relations with friends, work mates and neighbours are still highly valued
in the sense of the old working class culture. The old proletarian experience of
want, of insecure and limited incomes and of more traditional work skills is still
remembered. At work, the milieu members follow the disciplined ethos of good,
responsible skilled work. At home and in consumption, they modestly adapt to the
necessary. Participation in social standards has to be earned by ones own work.
The parent generation already grew up during the economic growth
decades since the 50s, with the experience of rising social rights and standards.
They grew to a new milieu of about 20 per cent which Goldthorpe and Lockwood
called the Affluent Workers12 and which we might call the Meritocratic Employee
Milieu as they strongly believe in hard skilled work which, then, legitimates
participating in the standards of consumption, leisure and social security of the
welfare society. Their skills, education and social standards are better than those of
the grandparent generation, but not extravagant. Their occupations are those of
modern employees, the men mainly in skilled blue-collar work, the women mainly
in skilled white-collar work.
The generation of the grand children mainly grew up since the end 60s, in
the context of educational reforms, new work and communication technologies,
new social movements and a wider variety of life styles. This Modern Employee
Milieu, first described around 1990,13 is growing rapidly, yet comprising more than
eight per cent. They are individualized, however in the sense of a strong sense of
personal autonomy and competence which, at the same time, is balanced with a
rather high level of social cohesiveness, responsibility and
employee-consciousness.
The milieu reminds of the old cosmopolitan culture of the curious and
creative artisan, with his passion for learning and wandering. They work in the
most mo dern bran ches of tech ni cal, so ci al, and or ga ni za ti o nal work, in
academically specialized practical occupations, ready to learn new arts and
languages, and convinced of the necessity of good skilled work and of
participating in the decisions at work as well as in politics. However, this work
ethic does not operate as an incentive for endless careers and acquisition. It is, in
their time schedules, balanced by a caring for their friends, neighbours and
parents. Although horizontal solidarity did not disappear, their autonomous
habitus makes them difficult members of trade unions and other organizations
with a rigid hierarchical style. However, their openness for non-conventional life
styles differs from that of the hedonistic milieu described later because they

12

13

Strictly speaking, Goldthorpe et al (1968) studied a specific group of affluent workers, i.e.
those in de-skilled work and urban living conditions, which is only in part identical with the
milieu described here. For a detailed discussion see Vester, 1998.
This type was first explored by mentality researchers in Hannover (Mueller, 1990; Vester, 1992),
Heidelberg (Flaig et al., 1993) and Gttingen (Baethge, 1991).

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

49

share the sceptical employee realism of the older milieus of their family tree.
Hedonism and personal emancipation are adapted to the frame of the possible.
In all three generations of milieus, trade union affiliation is still substantial
although gradually weakened: around 32 in the grand-parent milieu, around 28 in
the parent milieu and 24 in the youngest milieu. In their majority, all three milieus
are highly disappointed by the neoliberal tendencies in the political parties.
not to do always the same thing
(A Modern Employee)
Sabine, aged 31, is a dental technician, living with her mother, a cleaning lady living separated from
her father, a painter.
After Abitur, she became dental technician because I am a tinkering soul. She went to a small
firm where I can organize my work independently and work is not monotonous: For me it is
tremendously important not to do always the same thing. Studying is not her way as she likes to
have a result on the table, something useful and meaningful. Money was not that important for
me. However, she dislikes the increasing stress on the job.
Sabine is a committed trade unionist, member of the works council and often with a full
schedule all the week. Therefore she needs distance from work in the rest of her time. She likes to
read or let the soul dangle in the garden of her boyfriend (a full-time works council member) or to
make walking tours with the Friends of Nature, a labour youth organization. For her, as an active and
interested person, beach vacations are boring. Similarly, she likes educational courses, organized
not like school teaching but in a modern and inspiring way, on an equal footing. The surrounding
does not have to be luxurious.
Po li tics of ten dont meet her de mands, be ing con nec ted much with lul ling and
redundancy and with annoying forms of conflicts. But: If you want to move something you must
commit yourself (Bremer, 1999: 119-120).

Hierarchic orientation: the petty bourgeois labouring classes (2. 2.)

The second tradition line of the respectable popular milieus goes back to the old
deferent popular classes living in narrow, hierarchical conditions. Today, it unites
small employees and owners in traditional occupations. With their modest
material and educational resources, they are likely to be the losers of economic
modernization. They are looking for security in the hierarchies and duties of work,
politics and the family. This corresponds with a conventional and authoritarian
habitus. Solidarity is mainly limited to the core family and combined with the
hierarchical loyalty between patrons and clients.
However, outspoken authoritarianism has somewhat been modified by
modern life styles. The classical Petty Bourgeois Employee Milieu, which had 28
per cent in 1982, lost 14 percent who now are mainly to be found in the Modern
Petty Bourgeois Employee Milieu of eight percent. This younger milieu has more
solid occupational qualifications and incomes and can modernize the petty
bourgeois life style by elements of individual hedonism and of modern comfort. It

50

Michael Vester

can satisfy its striving for security better than the parent milieu, balancing
authoritarianism by tolerant styles. But the fundamental belief in occupational,
familial and ethnic hierarchies is still dominating.
Politically, both milieus have strong conservative and partly rightist leanings.
However, up to now four fifths of them give their votes to the big conservative or
social-democratic parties, still viewing them as a more reliable guarantee of security
interests. Parts of the milieus are important for labour. They are the authoritarian
workers who are a membership group trade unions have to count with. Trade
union membership is around the average (20 per cent in the older, 26 per cent in the
younger milieu). The conservative pattern of patron and client does not mean
unconditional obedience. It also implies that the patron has duties, which he can be
reminded of. Of course, this disposition will be articulated differently, depending on
field conditions. When there is strong fear of declassment and disenchantment
concerning the employee society, significant minorities of the milieu might turn to
reactionary or racist resentments, today especially rightist populism.

Life style orientation: the hedonist popular classes (2. 3.)

On the left margin of the middle, we see a formation, which defines itself as a sort of
vanguard of life style. The members of the Hedonist Milieu (12 per cent) profess
conspicuous anti-conformism, individual autonomy and spontaneous enjoyment
of the ex ci ting pos si bi li ti es of mo dern life style and con sump ti on. The se
peculiarities rarely are seen as a proof of the dissolution of traditional class
cultures. Indeed, they reject the petty bourgeois habitus of duty and order as well
as the skilled employees work orientation and self-discipline.
This delimitation may be interpreted differently when we consider the data.
The milieu mainly consists of young people under thirty whose parents and grand
parents belong to the occupational groups of the respectable tradition lines. The
rejection of conventional values, then, may also be seen as part of the generational
conflict with their parents who are belonging either to the petty bourgeois or to the
skill oriented tradition lines. The strong negative identification disguises the
internal differences of the young hedonists, The milieu is a transitory formation
constituted by the prolonged adolescent rebellion against the narrow perspectives
of necessity, harmony, security and thrift.
At the same time, our data show that about four fifths of the milieu comply to
the usual everyday routines of school, work and social obligations, and about one
fifth professes to go to church on Sunday mornings. Thus, for most milieu
members hedonism means little more than a leisure time compensation.
Moreover, since the golden years are over, hedonism has got into difficulties.
According to their age, many milieu members did not yet leave the phases of
education and transitional jobs behind them. Others are in the situation of low
qualified blue and white-collar work or unemployment. Thus, medium and small

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

51

incomes are the rule, and hedonism touches its material limits so that the group is
segregated into winners and loosers.
Especially, the thesis of eroding trade union affiliations is not supported by
our data. The percentage of trade union membership is about 26 in the whole
milieu, 30 for men and 22 for women. This, again, is around the average of the
popular classes.

Orientations of powerlessness: the underprivileged popular classes

The third main group of the popular and employee classes differs from the two
respectable traditions lines above them which, in normal times, enjoy an
integrated economic and moral status. The third tradition line, instead, is not stably
integrated into this nexus of giving and taking and the respective traditions of
internalized social control, thus seemingly justifying its underclass position
below the invisible border line of respectability.
However, the underclass of the Underprivileged Working Class Milieus,
about 12 per cent, is not different in all respects. Like the self-reliant labouring
classes they give high priority to their family, friends and peers. But they differ in
the means. For them, work is not fulfilment (as it is for the self-reliant milieus) or
a duty (as it is for the petty-bourgeois milieus). It is a necessary burden,
especially as they mostly occupy the less skilled, less secure and less paid jobs.
For them, the world is deeply divided into the powerful and the underdogs.
Intellectuals often misunderstand this polarized power image of society as a source of
clear proletarian class-consciousness and militancy. Empirically, however, their
confidence in their own forces is realistically limited. With little own resources of
economic and cultural capital, the future of their employment and well-being is
insecure. Being very conscious of the risks to be destabilized and stigmatized, they
prefer to develop strategies of flexibility and of keeping up with the standards of the
well-to-do classes and of leaning on to stronger actors the trade unions, the boss,
a good marriage or lucky occasions of many kinds. In this, they follow the old
tradition of the pre-industrial underclasses. With them, they share the belief that
investment in personal relations (horizontally as well a vertically) is most important
for social recognition while educational achievements or legal equality cannot be
trusted.
These strategies vary, according to the three sub-milieus they belong to. The
Fatalist sub-milieu (about 6 per cent) sticks to the underdog philosophy that all
personal efforts are futile. But they see the trade unions as their voice and almost
one third of them are tra de uni on mem bers. The same is true for the
Status-Oriented sub-milieu (about 3 per cent) although it is not so progressive in
other respects. Its members adopt the petty-bourgeois strategies of conformity
with patriarchalism in the family, discipline and reliability on the job and
conventionalism of life style. Instead, the Hedonist Rebels (about 2 per cent) follow

52

Michael Vester

the libertarian philosophy of the hedonistic milieu, practicing distance towards the
authorities of the state, the churches, higher education, patriarchalism etc.
Although this is the most individualized of the three sub-milieus, its trade
union affiliation is the strongest: 44 per cent.
I live through the day, seeing what comes.
(An Underprivileged Worker)
Kalle, a Volkswagen worker of 28, still lives in the house of his parents, constructed through hard
work. His father was an unskilled worker who is now pensioned after unemployment, his mother is
a housewife.
After primary school, an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic and a period of changing jobs, he
went to Volkswagen. The step into the factory was the money. Here, too, he changed the
department several times because of conflicts with the foremen. He is not content to work in a
material supply department: you feel like a hen in a big factory. But he does not see a way out. To
make his master craftsmans diploma is too risky: It costs 10. 000 Marks. And: Without
influential relations you dont have a chance.
In his leisure time, Kalle mainly wants to have fun, meeting friends in a pub or discotheque,
motorbiking or drinking. He likes to be independent, with no big obligations. I live through the
day, seeing what comes. I enjoy simply, I cannot make big plans. He does not want to work all my
life and dreams of a winning lotto ticket to buy a house, in Canada or Australia or everywhere.
He takes advantage of his right of an annual workers education course, mainly to get off the
job and to meet other people. It is important to talk a little, with a beer. He likes people who like
big talking and not those who come with a briefcase, sit down and swot. However, in the
courses, a little education is okay.
Politics is not one of Kalles hobbies. Politicians are much alike, thinking how they can best
fleece the little man. The results of politics are best seen in my wage packet. Talking politics is
no use (Bremer, 1999: 110-111).

Our data show that the strategies of leaning-on of most of the underprivileged
workers were partly successful although they did mainly not participate in the
educational revolution since the 60s (Geiler, 1994). Their school achievements are
still low although more stable. However, the post-war Fordist model of social
integration allowed them rather secure low-skill jobs in the pits, on the railway, in
the supermarkets or the assembly lines of big industry and also rather stable
incomes. But this model is now eroding, as the less skilled jobs are exported to
cheap labour countries and the social guarantees of the welfare state are
increasingly reduced. Today, the underprivileged blue and white-collar workers
are dividing into several parts. Many now are among the main losers of
modernization, forming the largest portion of the permanently unemployed.
Others re turn to the old mi li eu stra te gi es of com bi ning small jobs and
opportunities and of activating their networks in the informal economy. Politically,
parts of the milieus may also enter into actions against ethnic minorities or into
right wing populist protest.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

53

Ideological camps and the problem of societal integration

The political consequences of the present social destabilizations bring us back to

the question of political class-consciousness. Without claiming to go deeper into
cleavage research, I shall discuss the ideological camp cleavages we found in our
representative survey in connection with the problem whether voting preferences
can be deduced from class, as defined by employment aggregates or by milieus.
One of the prominent theses, discussed also by Crompton (1998: 86-89), is that
the link between being a worker and leftist voting have become increasingly
tenuous. Following the lines of Offe (1985), Beck and Giddens have developed the
new po li ti cal mo del sup po sing a ten dency that the va lu es of ma te ri al
redistribution of class society would erode in favour of post-materialist values
beyond class cleavages.
In our study, we had already found that, contrary to these theories, on the
level of everyday culture, the class differences of life-style and habitus are still
persisting, though in modernized forms. However, we did not assume that
everyday class culture necessarily translates directly into socio-political or
ideological cleavages, in the political field.
To test this in our representative survey, we used a special indicator of 45
statements concerning basic attitudes towards social justice and politics (Vester et
al., 2001: 550-552). Submitting the results to cluster and factor analyses, we could
validate a cluster solution, which showed that there were six camps adhering to
distinct concepts of social justice and models of the socio-political order. For each
camp, detailed statistical and attitude profiles could be formulated (ib.: 444-472).
In a second step, we took our map of class milieus (fig. 5) and located these six
camps in it, according to their distribution over the milieus. The resulting new map
(fig. 6) shows that there is no new camp beyond class cleavages. Each camp has a
specific location in social space. However, each camp crosses milieu borders, as it
forms a sort of coalition between factions of different milieus. As already
developed above (in the fifth paragraph of this article), this is nothing new.
Historical research on camp cleavages confirms that, due to the logic of the political
field, this is the normal case (Lepsius, 1973, see also Hall and Jefferson, 1977). In this
context, Beck and Giddens had not been realistic assuming that political cleavages
ever followed vertical class divisions.
However, we could find the new camp described by them. It is the camp of
the Ra di cal De mo crats, ad he ring in de ed to the na med univer sa lis tic and
seemingly class-less values of civil society and ecology, of gender and ethnic
emancipation etc. However, it had only 11 per cent, and a new representative
survey of the year 2000 confirms no significant expansion (Vester, 2001). Our
data also indicate why the camp did find only very limited support below the
upper class milieus. The reason lies in an litist ideology justifying the own
position near the top by the virtues of a puritan work ethic, which allegedly is
lacking in the lower milieus. None of the other camps shows such an affinity to
the unpopular neo-liberal politics.

54

Figure 6

Michael Vester

The socio-political camps in social space

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

55

Interestingly enough, there is one camp, which exactly shares the values of
the Radical Democrats but combines them with the values of universal social
inclusion, aiming not only at gender and ethnic integration but also at the
integration of the employee classes and the socially disadvantaged. This camp of
Social Integration (about 13 per cent) is largely based on a modern reform
intelligentsia, which is well represented not only at the top but also in the middle
and lower milieu levels. Thus, it is very near to the camp of Sceptical Distance
(about 18 per cent) which has its main base in the skilled employee classes and
favours a solidarity model of reciprocity. Who contributes to productivity and the
welfare state (and those in undeserved misery) should also participate in their
benefits. Their distrust in party politics is based on the view that there is too little
social justice for the ordinary people in the present economic transition.
Another, more hierarchic model of solidarity is favoured by the Conservative
Employee Camp, with its strongholds among the petty bourgeois blue and white
collar workers. Believing in a clientelistic model, where loyalty is repaid by
benevolent paternalistic care, they mainly adhere to the christian-democratic party
or the right wing of social democracy. However, one third of this 18 per cent group
have turned to modern life-styles and demand a more tolerant style from politics,
based on a more equal footing. This may translate into a change from conservative
to social democratic voting. This exerts pressure on the Traditionalist Conservative
Camp (c. 14 per cent) which, in social space, takes the patrons position above the
conservative employees. Their conservatism implies a rather rigid respect for
the hierarchies of status although no social group shall be totally excluded.
However, this did already happen at the right and lower margins of social
space where we find older and partly younger milieus with little educational
ca pi tal and in se cu re fu tu re pers pec ti ves. This Camp of the Frus tra ted
Authoritarians unites those losers of economic modernization who are interpreting
their situation according to authoritarian habitus patterns. They feel excluded by the
rest of society and compensate this by resentments against foreigners, everything
modern and also the politicians who neglect their duties. Against the risks of social
transformation, they plea for a protectionist state which keeps away competitors
from the world market as well as from other ethnicities. Up to now, members of this
27 per cent camp are mostly seeking this protection from the christian democratic or
the social democratic parties. But regional elections, as in Hamburg, already showed
that they might turn to right wing populist voting up to 18 per cent.
Does this panorama of ideological camps mean that society is torn apart by
different interests which can no more be bound together by an integrative formula
as formerly was the welfare state? This highly depends on the politics of the
political lites. First, our survey showed that the old German welfare state model is
still basically accepted by a majority of about eighty per cent. Second, a comparison
of the six concepts of social-political order shows that they could be led together by
their common denominator.
The models of solidarity are prevailing with 49 per cent. These are models
where solidarity and personal responsibility belong together and should not be played
off against each other, as it is the case in the two extreme social models of

56

Michael Vester

Ideological camps and socio-political models in Germany

lite models (c. 25%)

(1) Radical Democrat Camp: progressive-liberal lite model
(2) Traditionalist Conservative Camp: paternalist conservative model

c. 11
c. 14

Models of Solidarity (c. 49%)

(3) Conservative Employee Camp: conservative model of solidarity
(4) Camp of Social Integration: progressive model of solidarity
(5) Camp of Sceptical Distance: model of mutuality

c. 18
c. 13
c. 18

Protectionist models (c. 27%)

(6) Camp of the Frustrated Authoritarians: populist model of protection

c. 27

Figure 7

Ideological camps and socio-political models in Germany

Note: n=2. 684; German speaking residential population of 14 years and older in priva te households; cluster and
factor analyses.
Font: Representative survey Socio-Political Milieus in West Germany, 1991 (Vester et al., 2001, chapter 12).

protectionism and of neo-liberalism. The two elements solidarity and personal

responsibility could be united in the new integrating concept of a participatory
welfare state (Vester, 2001: 172-180). This formula could be administrated by a
government under social democratic as well as under conservative priorities. The
large minority of the authoritarian losers, which support a protectionist model,
could be lured away from populism by a policy of social minimum guarantees. The
small minority of the Radical Democrats which socially is on the winner side could
be attracted by a participatory remodeling of the welfare state. Despite of these
integrative formulae there will still remain considerable conflicts, especially
concerning the health and social insurance systems, the problem of precarious
labour and the opening of the educational system for the less privileged.

Conclusions

Going back to the initial questions, I can conclude that the transnational
application of the Bourdieu approach did not only show the limits of Bourdieus
analysis of the French class society. It also stimulated, by combination with the
discourses in other countries, further developments enlarging the possibilities of
this approach. These developments were also helpful to tackle the problems which
could not be solved by the employment aggregate and the individualisation
approaches to class analysis.
The research inspired by Bourdieu, especially Lamont (1992), Savage et al.
(1992) and Rupp (1995 and 1997) as well as our own work (Vester et al., 1993, 2001),
did not only show that in the middle classes and also in the employee classes there
is a structured differentiation of class factions and their cultures. Insisting on the

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

57

specific we ight and dynamics of culture, it also points to new analytical

distinctions by which the paradoxes and inconsistencies of conventional class
concepts might be brought nearer to their solution.
This encourages a new sight on the second problem, the seemingly static
consequences of Bourdieus theory as long it was only applicated to the French
society of the 70s. Indeed, the changes and shifts in social structure as a whole can
be understood better when culture is understood not only in its use as an
instrument of symbolic domination used by the privileged classes, but also as a
movement of social innovation and possible change on the horizontal axis of social
space. The introduction of this axis, in combination with the axis of time, may turn
out as one of the most consequential innovations of Bourdieus work.
This is implied in two empirical observations. First, while in the upper
echelons of society the drift towards more cultural capital and generational change
may mainly serve the reproduction of class domination, the authors (Lamont,
Savage et al., 1992; Vester et al., 2001) also discovered middle class factions with
in dis tinc ti ve cul tu ral pat terns, which may be pos sibly open for more
participatory tendencies from below. Understanding the upper milieus as a
dynamic field of forces helps to understand social change better than the rather
static and affirmative concept of a service class. Second, the increase of cultural
capital in the popular milieus also strengthens their position in the struggles for
more participation in social chances and decisions. In other words, the movement
of classes to the left pole of social space constitutes a contradictory development.
On the one hand, classes and class society are not dissolved but on a horizontal
movement which, by itself, does not change vertical structures of domination. On the
other hand, while class domination remains, at the same time the potentials for social
and political emancipation, which may challenge this domination, are growing.
This is the true element in the theories of individualization, post-materialism,
affluence, the rise of classlessness etc. But while these theories are more or less
supposing that these tendencies are subject-less and one-dimensional processes,
the Bourdieu approach may explain, that these phenomena have their function and
meaning in a different context, constituting a new constellation of social conflicts,
strengthening the counter-powers of all who participate in the increase of cultural
capital and the sense of autonomy: not only the employed classes but also the
gender, age and ethnic dominated groups.
Finally, the dynamic use of the Bourdieu approach may also help to solve
some of the methodological paradoxes inherent in the conventions defining classes
by mere employment aggregates or human action by mere economic interest.
Three of these possible solutions are especially noteworthy.
First, when class-belonging is based on a common habitus and on common
biographical strategies transmitted mainly in the families and milieus, it is also
connected with the preference for specific zones in the occupational field but not
deduced from it. Also already Schumpeter (1927) noted in his famous study on the
European aristocracy, Classes may reconvert to new economic bases through crises,
but mainly without losing their basic cohesion and identity. This also explains their
survival by the habitus metamorphoses, which are the base of class family trees.

58

Michael Vester

Second, when class belonging is based on habitus, the discussion whether the
belonging of women is given by their occupation or by their husbands turns out to
be one of the pseudo-discussions, exposed by Rosemary Crompton (1998).
Third, the rediscovery of the known fact that political attitudes are not part of
the everyday level of class culture but part of the special ideological and/or
intellectual levels of society may make clear that it never could be expected that
there was a direct, untorted relation between occupational class and voting.
Turning back to Bourdieus Distinction, we may discover his map of political space
as characterized by a systematic tortion. Empirically, however, this tortion is
not to be explained by one structural principle but by the political, ideological and
religious struggles and coalitions of the historical past which are conserved in the
institutional, attitudinal and mental traditions as forces with an own, perpetuing
weight.
The difficult task to integrate complex societies cannot be tackled by
organizing policies around supposed single trends, mechanisms or dominant
groups as theories of post-materialism, of individualization or of the service class
tried to recommend. If Ralf Dahrendorfs vi sion of the coming of a new
authoritarian century shall be disproved a better knowledge of societal dynamics
is needed, including the ories and an empirical di agnoses which allow to
distinguish the dimensions of complex societies by a new approach which
differentiates as well as integrates these dimensions.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

Annexes

Figure A1

The map of Italy Class Milieus

59

60

Figure A2

Michael Vester

The map of France Class Milieus

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

Figure A3

The map of Great Britan Class Milieus

61

62

Michael Vester

Bibliography

Baethge, Martin (1991), Arbeit, Vergesellschaftung, Identitt: zur zunehmenden

subjektivierung der arbeit, in Zapf, Wolfgang (ed.) Die Modernisierung Moderner
Gesellschaften, Frankfurt/Main, New York: Campus, pp. 260-278.
Becker, Ulrich, Horst Becker, Walter Ruhland (1992), Zwischen Angst und Aufbruch: Das
Lebensgefhl der Deutschen in Ost und West nach der Wiedervereinigung, Duesseldorf,
Econ.
Bell, Daniel (1973), The Coming of Post-Intustrial Society. A Venture in Social Forecasting,
New York, Basis Books.
von Bismarck, Klaus (1957), Kirche und Gemeinde in soziologischer sicht, Zeitschrift
fr Evangelische Ethik, H. 1, pp. 17-31.
Bourdieu, Pierre (1979, 1992), Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste,
London, Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bourdieu, Pierre, and Jean-Claude Passeron (1971), Die Illusion der Chancengleichheit,
Stuttgart, Klett.
Bremer, Helmut (1999), Soziale Milieus und Bildungsurlaub, Hannover, Agis Texte.
Crompton, Rosemary (1998), Class and Stratification, Cambridge, Polity, 2nd edn.
Dahrendorf, Ralf (1957), Soziale Klassen und Klassenkonflikt in der industriellen
Gesellschaft, Stuttgart, Enke (Class and Class Conflict in an Industrial Society,
London, Routledge, 1959).
Devine, Fiona, Mike Savage, John Scott, andRosemary Crompton (eds.) (forth coming),
Rethinking Class: Cultures, Identities and Life-Styles, London.
Durkheim, mile (1894, 1961), Die Regeln der Soziologischen Methode, Neuwied,
Luchterhand.
Durkheim, mile (1893, 1902, 1988), Ueber Soziale Arbeitsteilung, Frankfurt, a. M.
Flaig, Berthold Bodo, Thomas Meyer, and Jrg Ueltzhoeffer (1993), Alltagssthetik und
Politische Kultur, Bonn, J. H. W. Dietz Nachf.
Geiler, Rainer (ed.) (1994), Soziale Schichtung und Lebenschancen in Deutschland, Stuttgart,
Enke.
Geiger, Theodor (1932), Die Soziale Schichtung des deutschen Volkes, Stuttgart, Enke.
Geiger, Theodor (1949), Die Klassengesellschaft im Schmelztiegel, Kln und Hagen,
Kiepenheuer.
Giddens, Anthony (1997), Jenseits von Links und Rechts: Die Zukunft Radikaler Demokratie,
Frankfurt, a. M.
Giddens, Anthony (1999), Der Dritte Weg: Die Erneuerung der Sozialen Demokratie,
Frankfurt, a. M.
Goldthorpe, John H., C. Lewellyn, C. Payne (1987), Social Mobility and the Class Structure
in Modernd Britain, Oxford, Clarendon, 2nd edn.
Goldthorpe, John H., David Lockwood, Frank Bechhofer, Jennifer Platt (1968), The
Affluent Worker in the Class Structure, London, Cambridge University Press.
Hall, Stuart, and Tony Jefferson (1977), Resistance Through Rituals: Youth Subcultures in
Post-War Britain, London, Hutchinson.

CLASS AND CULTURE IN GERMANY

63

Hartmann, Michael (1998), Homogenitt und Stabilitt: die soziale rekrutiertung der
deutschen wirtschaftselite im europischen vergleich, in Peter A. Berger and
Michael Vester (eds.), Alte Ungleichheiten: Neue Spaltungen, Opladen,
Leske/Budrich, pp. 171-187.
Herz, Thomas A. (1990), Die Dienstklasse: Eine empirische Analyse ihrer
demographischen, kulturellen und politischen Identitt, in Peter A. Berger and
Stefan Hradil, (eds.), Lebenslagen, Lebensstile, Gttingen: Otto Schwartz (Soziale Welt,
Sonderband 7), pp. 231-252.
Lamont, Michle (1992), Money, Morals and Manners: the Culture of French and American
Upper Class, Chicago, Chicago University Press.
Lepsius, Parteiensystem, und Sozialstruktur (1973) Zum Problem der Demokratisierung
der deutschen Gesellschaft, in Gerhard A. Ritter (ed.) Deutsche Parteien vor 1919,
Koeln, Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Marshall, G., H. Newby, D. Rose, and C. Vogler (1988), Social Class in Modern Britain,
London, Hutchinson.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1945, 1965), Phaenomenologie der Wahrnehmung, Berlin, de Gruyter.
Mueller, Dagmar (1990), Zum Typus der neuen Arbeiterinnen, Forschungsprojekt
Sozialstrukturwandel und neue soziale Milieus, Hannover (working paper).
Offe, Claus (1985), New social movements: challenging the boundaries of institutional
politics, Social Research, 52 (4), pp. 817-868.
Rschemeyer, Dietrich (1958), Mentalitt und ideologie, in Ren Knig (ed.), Fischer
Lexikon Soziologie, Frankfurt, a. M.: Fischer, pp. 180-184.
Rupp, Jan C. C. (1995), Les classes populaires dans un espace social deux
dimensions, Actes de Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 109, pp. 93-98.
Rupp, Jan C. C. (1997), Rethinking cultural and economic capital, in John R. Hall (ed.),
Reworking Class, Ithaca (N. Y.): Cornell University Press, pp. 221-241.
Savage, Mike, James Barlow, Peter Dickens, Tony Fielding (1992), Property, Bureaucracy
and Culture: Middle-Class Formation in Contemporary Britain, London/New York,
Routledge.
Savage, Mike (2000), Class Analysis and Social Transformation, Buckingham/Philadelphia:
Open University Press.
Schumpeter, Joseph A. (1927, 1953), Die sozialen Klassen im ethnisch homogenen
Milieu, in Joseph A. Schumpeter, Aufstze zur Soziologie, Tbingen, pp. 147-213.
SPD (1984), Planungsdaten fr die Mehrheitsfhigkeit der SPD. Ein Forschungsprojekt des
Vorstandes der SPD, Bonn, Parteivorstand der SPD.
Spiegel Verlag, Manager Magazin (Hrsg.) (1996), Spiegel-Dokumentation Soll und Haben
4, Hamburg, Spiegel Verlag.
Der Stern (2000), MarktProfile, Hamburg, Stern.
Thompson, Edward Palmer (1963, 1968), The Making of the English Working Class,
Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Vester, Michael (1970), Die Entstehung des Proletariats als Lernprozess, Frankfurt,
Europaeische Verlagsanstalt.
Vester, Michael (1992), Die Modernisierung der Sozialstruktur und der Wandel von
Mentalitten, in Stefan Hradil, Zischen Bewusstsein und Sein, Opladen:
Leske/Budrich, pp. 223-249.

64

Michael Vester

Vester, Michael (1998), Was wurde aus dem Proletariat?, in Jrgen Friedrichs, M.
Rainer Lepsius, and Karl Ulrich Mayer (eds.), Die Diagnosefhigkeit der Soziologie,
Opladen, Westdeutschger Verlag, pp. 164-206.
Vester, Michael (2001), Milieus und soziale Gerechtigkeit, in Karl-Rudolf Korte and
Werner Weidenfeld (eds.), Deutschland-Trendbuch, Opladen 2001, pp. 136-183.
Vester, Michael, Michael Hofmann, and Irene Zierke (1995), Soziale Milieus in
Ostdeutschland, Kln, Bund.
Vester, Michael, Peter von Oertzen, Heiko Geiling, Thomas Hermann, and Dagmar
Mueller (1993, 2001), Soziale Milieus im Gesellschaftlichen Strukturwandel: Zwischen
Integration und Ausgrenzung, Frankfurt, Main, 2. Aufl.
Vgele, Wolfgang, Helmut Bremer, and Michael Vester, (eds.) (2002), Soziale Milieus und
Kirche, Wrzburg, Ergon.
Weber, Max (1921, 1964), Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der Verstehenden Soziologie,
Koeln/Berlin, Kiepenheuer & Witsch.
Wiebke, Gisela (2002), Traditionslinie von Macht und Besitz: das konservativ-gehobene
Milieu, in Wolfgang Vgele, Helmut Bremer and Michael Vester (eds.), Soziale
Milieus und Kirche, Wuerzburg, Ergon, pp. 297-309.
Williams, Raymond (1963), Culture and Society 1780-1950, Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Williams, Raymond (1977), Marxism and Literature, Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Wright, Eric Olin (1996), Class Counts, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Michael Vester is professor of Political Sociology and co-director of the Institut

fr Politische Wissenschaft, Universitt Hannover, Schneiderberg 50, D-30167
Hannover: E-mail: m.vester@agis.uni-hannover.de.
Homepage: www.gps.uni-hannover.de/ipw/